James and Irina Bertini launched Denver Urban Homesteading to bring back the joys of growing food, cooking from scratch and shopping from local farmers. They started the state’s first year round farmers market on Saturdays and now have expanded hours, opening on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons.

CLICK HERE to read our article.

CLICK HERE to visit them on-line and consider taking a class in the art of living healthy and well.

Do we really need industrial agriculture to feed the world? At the Path to Freedom Urban Homestead on a fifth of an acre in Pasadena, in one year the Dervaes family can produce three tons of fruit and vegetables, 25 pounds of honey and nearly 2,000 duck and chicken eggs. They utilize solar heat and people-powered machinery: for example, a blender connected to a stationary bike (pedaling gets the blades going) and an old-fashioned hand-wringer washing machine. They also make their own preserves and their own biodiesel fuel. For more on this unique urban homestead, follow this link: http://urbanhomestead.org/

To make pot roast like grandma used to make, you have to start with beef as good as grandma had to work with, Bill Flentje tells Ranch Foods Direct customers. He and his wife Debbie are at the Denver Urban Homesteading farmers market every Saturday 9 to 2 selling a wide variety of Ranch Foods Direct meat products. To see the article — and get Debbie’s quick easy recipe for a deliciously moist meatloaf — CLICK HERE.

The CFAM Jam to support the Colorado Farm and Art Market is being held May 2, 2-5pm, at The Margarita at Pine Creek. FREE starter plants, live music, appetizers made with local meat and produce, kid’s art, a silent auction, and more. Cost is $30 per person, and proceeds benefit the Colorado Farm and Art Market. CLICK HERE to visit CFAM on-line.

Explore these great pairings, still largely ‘untapped’

Everyone knows by now that locally brewed Laughing Lab ale and Ranch Foods Direct bratwurst are an ingenious combination (and a Ranch Foods Direct bestseller.) In our recipe feature this month, we tap local brewmaster Mike Bristol to talk about the magic of pairing beer and food. CLICK HERE.

For a handy beer-and-food pairing “cheat sheet,” CLICK HERE.

To visit Mike Bristol’s favorite website, CLICK HERE.

To visit Bristol Brewing on-line, CLICK HERE.

Celebrate Mother's Day May 9; celebrate Memorial Day May 31, with great steaks!

� Two 6 oz. filets for only $14.99!
� Ribeye special of 15% off (boneless or bone-in)

Did you know? Do we really need industrial agriculture to feed the world? Right now we produce enough food to feed the world one and half times over. But the way we farm will likely be forced to change in the future, says Raj Patel speaking to public broadcasting’s The Splendid Table (CLICK HERE). The average American consumes the equivalent of 2,000 liters of oil a year, but in the future water and oil will become increasingly scarce and expensive, he says.

He adds that meat production can be part of a sustainable system, and being vegetarian can actually be environmentally unsustainable, if it leads to huge crop monocultures. For example, the production of soy in Brazil, the world’s largest exporter, causes a great deal of environmental destruction. Americans should also work to be less consumptive overall. If the rest of the world consumed as much as we do in America, he says, we would need nine planets to support us.

A visiting professor at California-Berkley, Raj Patel uses Oscar Wilde’s observation that “nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing,” to open his new book, The Value of Nothing: How to reshape market society and redefine democracy, which examines our misguided faith in prices as a way of valuing the world. CLICK HERE for more.

The annual community field day and spring festival at nearby Chico Basin Ranch is coming up Saturday, May 8. To learn more about this special living heritage ranch, CLICK HERE. For other ideas to help plan spring and summer outings, visit the redesigned Peak to Plains Alliance website by CLICKING HERE.

Member, Peak to Plains Alliance (www.peaktoplains.com)